LONDON — Ladies, start your engines. George Clooney is back on the market.

The Hollywood heartthrob and his girlfriend of two years, Elisabetta Canalis, have parted ways, the couple announced in a statement released Wednesday in London.

“We’re not together anymore. It’s very difficult and very personal, so we hope that our privacy is respected,” they said.

Further details were hard to come by. A spokesman for Canalis told AFP, “It is a very personal and sad matter…she will be taking some time…and then will face the press.

“She has not authorized me to say when the split happened.”

US Weekly magazine reported Canalis spent Wednesday afternoon shopping in Milan with her brother, Luigi and the outing included a visit to an electronics shop.

Clooney’s whereabouts were not immediately known.

Clooney, 50, and Canalis, 32, began dating in 2009, making their first appearance together at the Venice Film Festival that year.

Although talk of splits dogged them, just last week Hello! magazine reported the couple enjoyed a romantic candlelit dinner together in Cernobbio, near his Lake Como home.

Earlier in June, Canalis dismissed the split rumors in Italian weekly magazine Chi and seemed to suggest the couple might one day even tie the knot.

She told the magazine, “I could never be with someone who every time he opens his mouth says he doesn’t want a child with me or to marry me.”

But Clooney, named Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine in 1997, seemed to have different ideas about a possible walk down the aisle.

“I gave it a shot,” he told CNN’s Piers Morgan last January. “Once was enough” – a reference to his marriage to Talia Balsam from 1989-93.

Clooney, a native of Lexington, Kentucky, is known for his humanitarian work as well as his acting, directing and screenwriting career. He won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the thriller “Syriana.”

His latest film, “The Ides of March,” a political thriller, will open this year’s Venice Film Festival on August 31, organizers said Wednesday.